


What is a potato

by nuclearchinchilla



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Crack, Dinner With The Family, M/M, Ridiculous Crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 02:39:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8779888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearchinchilla/pseuds/nuclearchinchilla
Summary: In which Minami finds himself invited over to Yurio's for dinner, and Phichit is everyone's favorite agony aunt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based off this reddit post: https://m.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/2tdbig/tifu_by_enraging_the_parents_of_my_girlfriend_by/

Phichit, you need to help me~!"  
  
"Minami, it's 4am in Detroit."  
  
"Oh? Ah, I'm sorry! It's just I really screwed it up with Yuri."  
  
"Wait what happened?"  
  
"Well you see, he invited me for dinner with his family and-"  
  
Phichit bounced up from his bed, "Oh my god, that's great! So what happened? Give me all the juicy details!"  
  
"Ahhh, it actually started out great! But I was still a bit nervous y'know? I really wanted to make a good impression, so I thought maybe it'd be a great idea if..."  
  
\---  
  
He was doing good certainly, but not good enough, and so it was decided that perhaps a change in training venue could boost his performance. It was only a year since Minami bumped into a younger blonde boy shopping for leopard prints in a Japanese alleyway, when he found himself shipped off to a Russian ice rink. It was there that he found himself under the informal tutelage of said younger boy. From there on, things between them snowballed. In another year, Minami was walking the streets of St Petersburg with Yuri, who had come to mean much more.  
  
"Hey listen Minami," Yuri scowled. Snow was just starting to fall, in small frosty bits, onto the worn cobblestones of the city streets. He kicked at a clump of ice near his feet listlessly. "You're invited to dinner with my grandpa, ok? I mean it's not that you have to go-"  
  
"Oh wow, really?! That's great!!!" Minami chirped. The truth was that he was a little bashful himself about meeting Yuri's family for the first time, but Minami was a fan of "when in doubt, smile wider and talk louder".  
  
Yuri however, for all time they had spent together, caught on to Minami's over-enthusiasm and nerves. "Hey, don't be stupid, you don't have to worry," Yuri reassured, his face softening, "my grandpa's a good guy, we get along real well."  
  
Minami reached out to grasp Yuri's left hand, their fingers slightly numbed by the cold. "That's great," he smiled.  
  
\---  
  
"Hey Yuri, what do you think?"  
  
"Hmm?" Yuri looked up from tapping away on his phone. He held all the nonchalance of a typical teen boy surfing the interwebs while lying in bed, except that Yuri actually had his legs behind his head in one of those confounding yoga poses, while seated on the floor of Minami's apartment, because why not. Minami was starting to be convinced that if any exercise actually required the use of both arms, Yuri would cry blasphemy and find an alternative.  
  
"I mean my hair," Minami continued, eyes wide open and tongue slightly stuck out, as he concentrated on fiddling with his spikes of gelled up hair. It was an hour before their dinner with Yuri's grandpa, and the floor of Minami's bedroom was already strewn with outfits tried and rejected for the occasion.  
  
The truth, was simply that Yuri had never any idea what to say of hair that perpetually resembled the McDonald's condiment aisle. It's not like such hair could look any more, or less, ridiculous.  
  
"Ahh, I'm actually going for that "just woke up" look y'know? But if I don't do this, my hair would just fall out of that bedhead look in the hours after waking," Minami continued as he ruffled his hair meticulously and cautiously.  
  
"So you're putting in a lot of effort to look like you're not putting in effort?" Yuri asked.  
  
Minami held up a t-shirt emblazoned with a large pair of cartoon ice skates. "Yeah I mean why not," he laughed.  
  
\---  
  
They drove out to the outskirts, where Yuri's grandpa lived in the midst of an Soviet-era apartment complex that looked, quite fittingly, like it had neither seen nor heard of a coat of paint. They were five-storey solid concrete blocks, specked with the white of winter and the black of grime in chipped blocks.  
  
"It's over here," Yuri pointed out. Minami didn't ask how he knew when all the apartment blocks looked the same.  
  
\---

Grandpa, this is Minami Kenjirou," Yuri introduced.  
  
Minami didn't know whether to be surprised that the man looked like he fought wild bears in the midst of winter.  
  
Endeavoring to make a good impression, he grinned widely and stuck out his right hand, while he stumbled over a Russian phase, " Очень приятно" (pleased to meet you).  
  
For a moment, Yuri's grandpa regarded him with a kind of soul-piercing gaze that made the already-diminutive Minami feel like sinking somehow into the doorstep they were waiting on. Then the man made a sound that sounded vaguely like approval, and patted Minami on the shoulder. He moved aside to make space for the pair to enter the apartment. "I can speak English, come on in."  
  
\---  
  
Modest as the apartment was, it was a small sweet hovel filled with scattered mementos of Yuri and his family, while Yuri's interactioms with his grandfather further added a rare kind of warmth to the space. They were drinking some kind of chowder when Yuri's grandfather asked about food in Japan and, to his surprise, confided an interest in creating some Japanese-Russian fushion food. Minami's nerves eased somewhat as he pattered on about mentaiko, takoyaki, corn potage and so forth. Conversation was going good, with Yuri's grandfather replying with comparisons of Russian cuisine and ideas for fushion food, while occasionally interjecting some half-remembered embarassing childhood memory of Yuri's.  
  
But Minami's strong desire to make a good impression had not completely dissipated. "Yuri told me you're a funny guy," Yuri's grandfather had said a few moments ago. It was a casual comment, yet Minami felt a certain degree of determination to prove it right.  
  
Chowder was finished and taken off the table. The next course was removed from the oven, and revealed itself to be baked potatoes.  
  
The idea struck Minami.  
  
\---  
  
So when the potato became on my plate, I acted very interesting," Minami explained the situation to Phichit in broken English, "Yuri's grandfather, whose name is Dmitri, by the way, well Dmitri seemed confused, but did not remark. So I went, 'This looks very interesting. What is this?'"  
  
\---  
  
Dmitri blinked. "It's a baked potato."  
  
"Oh wow! Very interesting. A baked...what again?"  
  
"A potato."  
  
"Poh-tay-toe. Interesting. I never heard of one, it looks pretty good."  
  
This was the point in which Minami expected, with full certainty, that Yuri's grandfather would call him out, perhaps chuckling while announcing "well of course you know what a potato is, stop messing around!"  
  
But Dmitri's look of confusion and shock seemed all too genuine. "Really? There are no potatoes in Japan?" he asked politely and curiously.  
  
A knot of dread formed in Minami's stomach as he started to realized that really, with Dmitri actually believing him, if he were to reveal it all as a joke, it would only fall flat and things would get awkward and Dmitri would feel like a fool in a bad way and that would be Minami's fault.  
  
So really, now he was left with only one way with all this.  
  
\---  
  
"Dmitri was like 'So you've never heard of a potato?' And he was loud now, like he was all incredulous, but he was still believing it all. So I was all, well sir, I did not ever even hear of a potato. Not only had I never eaten a potato I had never heard the word potato," Minami continued to Phichit, "so yes, this all went on for a while, back and forth for a bit, until Yuri-"  
  
\---  
  
"Minami, you can't be bloody serious, stop with these fucked up antics, you idiot!" Yuri exploded.  
  
"Yuri! Be nice to our guest."  
  
"But grandpa, there are potatoes in Japan-"  
  
"Oh my god, really? Where in Japan?" Minami hastily asked without thought.  
  
"Minami, I swear to fucking god-"  
  
"But Yurii~ There are a lot of regional variations in food-"  
  
"What do you want from us?" Yuri suddenly pleaded.

\---

"So I got more and more insistent about not knowing what a potato is, and that was when the granddad starting thinking I DID know what a potato is."  
  
"So you owned up?" Phichit asked.  
  
There was a pause of silence.  
  
"Well why do you think I'm calling you."  
  
\---  
  
"Enough is enough. You're screwing with us. Admit it."  
  
This was, supposedly, the desired outcome- for Dmitri to catch on to it all as a joke. But Minami realized that he wanted, nay, needed, Dmitri to catch on lightheartedly, and not with the fervent rage he now displayed. He was sure that with two thoroughly pissed-off, disbelieving hosts, things would only end on a  bad note if he did own up. They would think of him as dishonest and disgusting and a bunch of other unfavorable things. So really, the only amicable solution was now, ironically, to make Dmitri and Yuri believe he never did ever even hear of a potato. He truly must commit 100% at this point, there was no turning back.  
  
"Sir, with due politeness and in all honesty, I have never heard of this "potato" of which you speak of, at least not before today. I don't know what to tell you."  
  
As if to prove his point, Minami took a bite of baked potato, widened his eyes, and squeaked out in a high-pitched voice, "Tastes very strange!"  
  
Yuri stormed off. Dmitri stood up and slammed his palms on the dinner table.  
  
"Get the fuck out of my house."  
  
\---  
  
"Dammit, my sides are hurting, HAHAHA! This is almost as good as the time Viktor found this self-insert Viktuuri fanfic that Yuuri wrote in middle school, oh my god."  
  
"Phichit, this is serious! I've been trying to convince Yuri that I really don't know what a potato is, but he won't have any of it. I think he might break up with me anyway."  
  
"Tfw you lose your boyfriend by saying you don't know what a potato is!" Phichit laughed. "Ok wait. Wait, I have an idea...."  
  
\---  
  
Dmitri really didn't like that Kenjirou kid, but after a few weeks, things settled down a tad and Yuri pleaded him to give another chance. The next skating competition was in Russia anyway, the Kenjirou family would be coming over to cheer their son on, and they really wanted to meet Yuri and Dmitri. So whatever, Dmitri thought, alright then. Second chance for the sake of his grandson. Last chance.  
  
The Kenjirou family were surprisingly sane and pleasant. And therefore it took him off guard when Minami's father pulled him aside with a wary gaze and whispered a certain statement into his ear. Then again, in hindsight, he should have somewhat expected it, considering Minami himself seemed perfeclty sane until he suddenly wasn't.  
  
"Listen," Minami's father asked softly with fear and caution evident in his eyes, while he gripped Dmitri's left arm, "did you serve potatoes to him over dinner with you?"  
  
"Well yes."  
  
Minami's father suddenly jerked away his hand like he had burnt himself. He looked at Dmitri in shock and betrayal. Then he averted his gaze quickly, mumbled something about "wanting to keep them from him" before stalking off further down the dark corridor.  
  
\---  
  
"I can't believe your dad did that for you, you owe him one!" Phichit chortled.  
  
"Yes I know, but I'm pretty sure I can never let our families meet again!" Minami moaned.


End file.
